A foul-tasting wet rag was stuffed into Thomas's mouth, and when he tried to activate his life essence, nothing happened. 'Poison.' He struggled and kicked and flailed as he was pulled further from Frey by four men in black masks. He tried to scream, which finally made Frey turn his way. "Help," Thomas tried to say. "I need…help."

Branches and leaves broke the further Thomas was pulled into the mess of vegetation. Elbows and fists jostled him and dull, creaking pains assaulted his body. A foreign weariness overtook him, whispering like a forbidden temptation to shut his eyes. "Only for a moment," the weariness said, but Thomas forced his heavy eyes to remain open. 'Not yet.' He thought. 'I've…we've worked so hard.' He moved his fingers around. No one noticed his spatial ring plunk into the water. He was still being jostled around, which he only knew because his world shook. The pain however, had left.

Finally, a scream rang through the forest, Frey's. Two of the masked men, now simple blurs in Thomas's world, got into stances with blood red mist around them. A massive giant covered in, what Thomas could only describe as a thin, white cloud, charged in like a wave, crashing over anything and everything – a force of nature. The soft clanging of metal on metal and the crunching of bone barely reached Thomas's ears, as if sound itself had been muffled. 'Frey looks scared.' Finally succumbing to that numbing sensation, Thomas allowed his eyes to close, just for a moment.

He opened his eyes and the mass of broken vegetation was gone. His world, blurry and full of white rocks, became a little lighter. A sharp shoulder poked into his soft, empty stomach. He went to flail some more. 'Running and throwing spears are the only things I can do.' He glanced back at his legs, red flesh underneath tight, splintering rope. The swamp's chill left him, as did his vision as he was carried into a dark cave layered in shadows. 'I can't…stay awake.' He blinked.

...

"What do you think Frey will do if we don't find Thomas?" Elero couldn't help but ask. "Or…if we find him and it's too late?"

"In that case," Doevm whispered. "I think he'll just crumble."

"You might have known him for much longer than me, but I know a person on the verge of snapping." Elero glanced at Frey, who was paddling ahead of them across the blood lake. "Why don't you talk to him and make-up?" Elero put on a light smile.

"Talk to him?" Doevm chuckled. Frey glanced over his shoulder. "I don't have anything to say that hasn't already been said, for now at least. Just a little longer, until the end of today, and then I can bring him back to his senses."

"I don't think he is that patient."

Doevm frowned. When the group made it to the other side of the lake, Doevm narrowed his eyes at the tracks. "Frey, did you and Thomas continue ahead even after finding the tracks?" Frey nodded. 'He's too caught up with everything. Elero, you might be right about him.'

"Here it is," Frey said, having arrived at a bend full of splats of blood. He stepped off his Amphiboard and waving a hand for the other two to come closer. "Doevm, this is your specialty, right? I won't disturb you."

Doevm spoke slowly. "I'll do my best but I don't know if I can do anything here." 'After healing everyone and using that mind-link spell my mana is completely gone. Not even scraps remain.' He laid down chest-first on his Amphiboard and let himself drift along the area while picking at the various broken branches. Elero did the same, although Doevm didn't know if she could help very much.

"I think there's something over here," Frey said after a bit. The giant paddled behind a tree, out of sight. Doevm glanced at Elero and raised his spear. Elero shook her head and raised two thumb-ups, trying, and failing to smile.

'Chances are that this is an ambush,' Doevm thought. 'If it is, they'll go after Elero, who is alone. If Elero is right about Frey however, and I don't take the chance to calm him down, he'll snap at me before we get to Trak's group.' Doevm pulled some string out of his spatial ring and handed one end of it to Elero. "Do you know what to do if you're attacked?" Elero nodded and shooed him away.

Immediately after paddling out of sight, Doevm found Frey sitting against a tree with his head in his hands. "Can you do anything about this?" Frey's muffled voice came from behind his hands. He looked so small with a hunched back. "Can you use your magic to find him in some way?" Frey moved his hands and looked up to Doevm, who shook his head. Frey cursed. "Do you have a plan?" Doevm shrugged.

Frey sat there for a moment, the walls of silence that he had built around himself crumbling down. "I said that I wouldn't trust a word you said, but this is Thomas. He's not some soldier who can take a few hits no matter how much he wants to be one. He's soft, weak. He won't last in their care even if they don't kill him. Tell me, what should I do? What can I do?" He held up his hand, still covered in a white aura. "I can't turn this off. I can't think. I can't do anything but get in your way right now. If I could calm-"

"Calm?" Doevm raised an eyebrow. "Look at you," he grabbed Frey's shaking hand and held it up. "There's no way you would be calm, especially with that power."

"I know that I'm not like you but I just need some method to be rationa-" He paused and looked at Doevm's hand, which trembled even more than his own.

"I am not calm," Doevm's calm voice leaked hostility. His black eyes flashed red. "I have found that being calm isn't always a good thing. I want you to be angry but I do not want you to rely on that emotion. I want you to bottle everything up for now, even if the world goes black and white. Remember what I said about a hero continuing onward even with all the pain they have endured? This power," he flicked the white aura. "This is the manifestation of your pain and your determination."

"So what will I do?" Frey asked, slowly rising to his feet.

Doevm smiled: "When you inevitably find that you can't hold yourself back,

squeeze out every last drop of strength from your screaming limbs.

Do not think about your rage.

Do not think about vengeance.

Think about the people who you want to protect and kill whomever I point at."

"I found something," Elero's voice called. Doevm stuffed the string into his spatial ring after paddling back.

The white aura around Frey flickered out of existence. A burst of emotion washed through his chest. He paddled around the tree and raised his head high. 'People I want to protect? Well, that crosses off Gwen and her family because I can't go back there. That doesn't mean the Virility guards nor does that mean the people of Petal Town. I suppose that just leaves the people in this group. What the hell? I'll even protect Elero, even if I'll probably be getting more help from her than I am able to give back.' His shaking increased, violently. He couldn't stop making a fist. 'Not yet,' he thought to himself. 'Later.'

Elero held up a spatial ring, which glinted in one of the few rays of light in the forest. "This is Thomas's."

"Where was it?" Doevm asked, still looking at the splats of blood."

"Over in this northwest area," Elero weaved herself into the vegetation and found pieces of torn cloth. "He must have taken it off before Trak's group noticed."

…

When he pulled himself from that involuntary slumber, he found himself sitting against a cold, stone wall. Water dripped on top of his numbed head. A familiar person stood above him. Attached to that familiar person's back was a black great sword.

Gregen pulled the rag in Thomas's dry mouth. His jaw dropped and a bit of drool dripped down the side of his cheek. "What…what are-" He lurched forward. Coughs rattled through his throat. His stomach rumbled.

Gregen crouched to Thomas's level and drew a dagger. Thomas sat there staring at its worn, slightly rusted blade. "My name is Arin," Gregen said. "I have no last name, young master Virility. I have no family. I have no friends. I have no money. If I died, no one would care." He cocked his head to the side. "except maybe Trak, he might care a little. Tell me, do you think that any amount of work could earn me what I lack in? If I smile and believe hard enough, will fortune fall into my lap?" He reached forward and grabbed Thomas by the chin. "You can't talk so just nod or shake your head. I'll help."

Thomas nodded, his eyes glued to the dagger, which had been brought closer since Gregen had crouched next to him. "I see," Gregen put on a fake smile. "That's a common belief, although not a commoner's belief, or peasant's belief as you would say. No, that's a common belief to people who were born with fortunes, the same people who have formed a system that never allows me to earn those things which I lack."

"It was made harder to earn anything when I was sent to the front lines to fight." he brought the dagger so close to Thomas's face that breath fogged the blade. "I bet as you looked out the window of your comfortable mansion, you envied us. You wanted to earn glory and become a powerful knight or a soldier, right?" He "helped" Thomas nod. "What I found on the front lines, what I had earned after stepping over dozens of corpses of farmers, slaves, servants, blacksmiths, leatherworkers, beggars, and," He took a shaky breath. "My friends, was not glory. I didn't earn anything I wanted, only callouses after hours of digging up the bloodied soil, their graves. I've heard that heroes gain the determination of the fallen. What a blatant lie that was. The war just made me realize something new: my old wish to live happily with friends and family was a dream of a weakling. It's impossible to protect them. Everything dies in the end."

By now, Thomas had regained the ability to think, and he wondered if he could reach the few bits of life essence at the edge of his blurry consciousness. He tried to judge if he could raise his bound hands to meet the dagger's blade. The second a bit of life essence formed around Thomas's hands however, a rag was shoved into his mouth, and a sour taste took away his life essence.

"Taste familiar?" Gregen asked. "It's your poison after all, from all those roses of yours. The only thing I have ever truly earned in life was thanks to your kind: an emotion that only peasants can carry." He brought the dagger closer to Thomas's hands. "And now that I see you, a hypocritical and arrogant brat who relies on my kind like a crutch," He smirked. "It makes me glad that I can humble you."

The dagger grew closer, cutting through the ropes that bound Thomas's hands and feet together. Then Gregen ran his hands along Thomas's arm, pulling at his clothes. After, he went for the other arm, then Thomas's legs, until finally running over his chest. "You aren't even scared enough or smart enough to carry a hidden weapon." He picked Thomas up and threw him over his shoulder.

A flash of red invaded Thomas's vision and Gregen squeezed him, hard. "You seem like the rest of the nobles that we have captured, but also a little different at the same time. They screamed the second they had the chance to. After we stuffed them into their cells, they flinched away from bugs and kept screaming. They were annoying." He shifted Thomas around until the young noble could see straight into his red, slitted eyes. "I beg of you. Please, do not give it a reason." A red aura surrounded Gregen's arm. "Be silent, be patient, be a good little prisoner, and you can make it out of here."